The first meeting to establish and strengthen queer-straight alliance groups in the region was heralded a success.
Six local schools met at Napier Girls' High School on Tuesday led by Wellington based InsideOUT, a group which aims to make the country a safer place for minority sexualities and genders.
InsideOUT national co-ordinator Tabby Besley said there was a lot of great conversation around the subject and hoped it inspired people to make changes in their own schools.
"We had about 20 people there and some staff came too, which was great as we had a lot of positive feedback from them."
Ms Besley said they gave the students ideas on what worked well and how they should keep moving forward.
Napier Girls' High School Year 13 student Becca Hartley found it really helpful and said it opened up ideas about how to make their established queer-straight alliance group better as well as raising awareness in their school.
Miss Hartley, the co-organiser of the Unity in Diversity group at her school, said it was great being able to take InsideOUT's techniques and apply them to their own group.
"We could take in what they said and other schools who didn't have a group already established could learn how to set one up."
During the meeting InsideOUT ran a continuum asking the schools questions relating to issues around the topic.
"I think people are becoming much more aware and accepting, and they're not being offensive anymore. It's more about them being uneducated."
Miss Hartley hoped the workshop would help educate staff so more schools were accepting and understanding.
"I just hope the conversation can be started in schools around Hawke's Bay."